Chapter Text
A cold November night, snowflakes landing on his shoulders, wispy clouds of his breath floating around him, a silence broken only by the sound of his own footsteps. It was nights like this, where he can sneak away and avoid worrying about the rest of the world, that Simon lived for. Recently it’s one of the only things that brings him peace.
Not that his home isn’t peaceful, he loves being at home with Sara and his mama, for the most part. But it had been so tense since the fight they’d had about Sara transferring schools without him. It seemed to haunt every room.
Her determination to do it alone and his fear of what would happen to her when she was surrounded by all those rich kids. If the students at Marieburg were so awful, god knows how bad these rich kids at Hillerska might turn out to be. He thought it was justified for him to be worried about her, and she thought he was treating her like she couldn’t take care of herself. They might have both had a point.
Since transferring Sara tells them about her classes, “They’re not that much harder.”
She tells them about working in the stables, “Rousseau is such a beautiful horse, I'm sure that he cost a fortune.”
She tells them about the customs, “We have to set the table like they do, it’s how they’ve always done it.”
But she doesn’t say anything about the other students, ever. And Simon is terrified that the reason she’s not telling them is that Hillerska isn’t any different than Marieburg. What if the only thing that’s different is that he can’t protect her? It scares him to no end that there’s nothing he can do if things are going wrong there-
“Don’t have the guts to talk to me? Just cause everybody knows who I am?” A loud, distressed voice cuts through the air, interrupting his worrying.
Simon realizes that he’s walked all the way to the football field and, in the middle of the grass, there’s someone yelling at the practice dummies. The person looks young, except Simon isn’t sure what a someone his age would be doing wearing a nice suit jacket in freezing weather at 2 am. With clothes like that they’re probably from his sister’s school. It almost makes sense since the edge of Hillerska’s property is a few miles, maybe three, away from the football field. It’s not too surprising that some rich kid chose to get fucked up and wander around. But it is kind of shocking that they made it all the way to the field considering there’s no trail or straight path to take. God knows how long this guy had to walk through the woods to end up here.
He stands frozen watching the scene unfold. The boy is still yelling, tripping over his own feet, pushing the dummies until they fall over, hitting them as if they had personally attacked him. And Simon can see in the way he moves that he’s drunk or high. He’s clearly nowhere near reality night now, so maybe both.
It makes him feel sick to watch. He’s always hated seeing a person so lost in their vices that they no longer register the world around them.
He remembers the way his father would stand up from the couch just to sway, take a half step forward and fall back as if he couldn’t remember what he would possibly want to stand up for. He remembers the way his dad would pull him in close with arms too tight around his neck and claim that he and Sara were the lights of his life that made everything worth it, the perfect children for his perfect life. They were words that might have been loving if they weren’t tainted by the smell of liquor fanning over Simon’s face and the knowledge that he would never say it sober. He remembers the way he had to help his dad get to bed and lay on his side, remembers waking up multiple times in the night just to check if he was still breathing.
The boy’s laugh echoing across the field reminds him too much of the sound of his father’s from moments like those. It’s a sound he wishes he never had to hear again. A laugh that was empty, deranged, unintentional.
He wonders how the boy got to be there. What happened that he needed to be so fucked up on a Thursday night in the middle of a field? If Simon is right and he really is from Hillerska what could possibly be going wrong in his little rich boy life that he ended up here? Or was he just pathetic and chose to get fucked up because people like him think it’s just a bit of fun and have never faced consequences for their actions?
He curses his luck that he’s the one who found him. Because as much as he hates this, there is no way in hell he’s about to leave someone laying face down on a field when it’s freezing outside and they aren’t even wearing a real jacket. Maybe he could call an ambulance if he needs to, but he knows that what the kid probably needs is just to sleep it off. At least his experience with his dad led him to know that much. Besides if he calls the ambulance it’s going to become a whole thing, and he’s going to have to tell his mom about it. She would worry about why he went out so late, and he doesn’t want to stress her out.
Except rich boy hasn’t moved in the past minute, and from this angle Simon can’t even tell if they're breathing. Maybe he will need to call that ambulance.
He digs through his pockets fumbling for his phone as he runs up. He's sprawled out on the grass his breathing shallow when Simon reaches him and turns him over, scrambling to check if he’s still awake, still alive.
No prior knowledge of what to do with drunk people could have made him ready for the face that looked back up at him. Parts of it were like he expected: glassy eyes, a thin sheen of sweat, greasy tangled hair, an unfocussed expression. What he didn’t expect was for it to be the face that belonged to the fucking Crown Prince of Sweden.
On some level he knew that the Prince went to Hillerska, there was no reason that it couldn’t be him. It was the only thing people in Bjärstad could talk about for weeks when he first transferred, everyone wondering if he would ever come down to their city. Simon assumed that he would see him at some point, most of the students from the boarding school eventually found their way to town. But he definitely never thought he would see him here, now, like this.
How could a Prince be so stupid? What was wrong with him that he did some dumb shit like this? Alone in the middle of the night, high off his ass? Simon’s not exactly a huge fan of monarchy, but he expected a bit more from someone raised to be King of a nation. But the boy in front of him wasn’t really raised to be King, that would have been Crown Prince Erik. The one who died less than two weeks ago.
Simon feels his heart softening, just a little. Maybe it wasn’t shocking that the person losing their mind in the middle of the night was Crown Prince Wilhelm. Maybe he isn’t the prince at all, just a brother in mourning.
The Prince’s hand landed on Simon’s forearm and his eyes look up at him, almost in wonder, “Are you an angel?”
If he wasn’t so out of it Simon might have found it cute, “What? No, sit up.”
“But you’re so pretty, like an angel.”
Simon freezes for a second, the Crown Prince just called him pretty. The supposedly straight Crown Prince thought he was pretty. How exactly is he supposed to respond to that?
He brings himself back to reality and grabs the Prince’s arms, pulling him into a sitting position, “I promise you; I am not.”
“Look,” the Prince holds out his hand, covered in the small plastic beads from the field, “I’ve found it out, everything is fake. Everything in the world is fake. The grass isn’t even grass, it’s plastic.”
A wave of sympathy hits him again. He wonders if the words falling from the other boy’s mouth are the result of whatever drugs are in his system or if he really means it.
“Come on get up,” it takes a monumental effort to get the blonde to stand on his unsteady legs.
Simon’s compassion mixes with his hatred for situations like this. Despite resenting it, he’s good at taking care of drunk people. He knows what they need and how to help. He hates the rich and entitled; and what is a prince if not the very definition of those things? But right now he’s not a prince he’s just someone lost who needs to be laying in a bed where he can sober up.
God Simon wishes he didn’t have such strong morals.
“It’s like bright but at night,” the tall boy looks directly up at the huge industrial lights that illuminate the whole field, “It’s night… I know that much. But why is it bright?”
“They’re just lights.”
The Prince’s ignores him with hands reaching out to land reverently on Simon’s cheeks, “All the people are fake. They’re made out of metal. But you’re real. And you’re here and that’s real.”
“Right. Sure, we’re real. Let’s go,” Simon brushes the Prince’s hands away from his face, trying to ignore how gentle the touch had been.
He has much bigger problems to worry about than meditating on the fact that he’s literally holding the future king of the country. Problems like it’s a long walk back to his house and now he has to do it dragging this boy behind him.
As the Prince leans his weight into him Simon can’t help but notice how tall he is, not too much taller than Simon himself but enough that if they were in literally any other scenario when they met Simon would think it was attractive.
“You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”
Simon wonders if all the compliments are a testament to how high the Prince is or if he means it. The Prince’s eyes are an open book, and his words aren’t hard to interpret. But Simon knows that, no matter how sincere words might be, they mean nothing when they’re said by someone as fucked up as he is.
The long walk back to his house is filled with stumbling and the Prince’s half formed thoughts. Mumbles about metal people surrounding him, the world being fake and everyone knowing his name but not him. If Simon lets himself listen to the rambles too closely he thinks his heart might break.
It’s like Wilhelm is desperate for some kind of connection. His hands can’t stop reaching out, they never do anything inappropriate but Simon would be lying if he said the touching wasn’t driving him crazy. He didn’t exactly want clammy hands touching his face.
He thanks whatever kind of god there is that the Prince seems to finally have run out of words by the time he's unlocking the door.
“Listen, uh- Wilhelm.” Simon is not about to call him Your Highness right now, but maybe that would be the most apt description of his current state, “I need you to be quiet. We’re going to walk through a few rooms, we’re going to go into the last door of the hallway and once that door is closed we can be normal okay?”
“Okay…” The words are slurred and dragged out, but thankfully almost inaudible, “Shhhhhhh, quiet.”
Simon isn’t exactly proud of his ability to sneak in and out of his house without his sister or mom noticing, but he can’t deny that he’s never been more grateful for the quiet tiptoeing he learned from living with his father. He steadies himself and takes more of the Prince’s weight onto his shoulders, giving him more control to stop the taller boy from bumping into any of the side tables or furniture. It takes them longer than it should to cross the length of the house. When they're finally, mercifully, safe behind his bedroom door Simon listens for a brief second and hears no noise coming from his family’s rooms and knows they're safe for the night. No one woke up and there’s nowhere else he has to drag this drunk mess.
He all but throws the Prince onto his bed, with his hands finally free he looks at his phone for the first time since the field, 3:47 am. Fuck, they’re going to have to be awake in less than 4 hours, “Come on, you need to sleep.”
The Prince nods and reaches down to take off his shoes, his fingers fumbling with the laces until he seems to give up and wrenches them off his feet. Simon hadn’t noticed it before but the Prince was wearing dress shoes. He was drunk and high as fuck in the middle of winter in the middle of a field wearing, not only a suit jacket, but also fucking dress shoes. Shoes that probably cost more than all of Simon’s clothes combined. He tries not to let it annoy him.
He takes pity on the other boy and reaches out to help him pull off his suit jacket, throwing it over the back of his chair. The Prince rips his shirt off and throws it on the floor. On the floor of Simon’s room, the room that he shouldn’t even be in right now. God this asshole is so lucky that Simon is a nice person.
“Lay down, no, on your side,” Simon huffs, forcefully turning the Prince to make sure he lays properly. The last thing he needs is for the fucking Crown Prince to choke on his own vomit in his house.
“But then I can’t see you, if I can’t see you how do I know what’s real?” there’s real fear in the Prince’s eyes and in his voice, it melts the annoyance Simon felt in seconds. What does it mean when all it takes is an hour of being around someone for them to feel safe when they look at you? What kind of lonely life did the Prince lead that the only way he knows he’s real is reaching out to a stranger?
“I’ll be right here; you can see me the whole time.”
“Okay,” the Prince finally relaxes and gives in, his body melting into the small bed and his eyes drifting shut, “Thank you Angel.”
“My name is Simon,” he can’t help but reach out and push back the Prince’s hair away from his face.
“Thank you Simon,” seconds later he’s out like a light and Simon is left alone with his thoughts once again.
So much for a peaceful midnight walk.